


Scenes From the Windy City

by SophiaHawkins



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28473318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaHawkins/pseuds/SophiaHawkins
Summary: A collection of short stories featuring the crew from Firehouse 51 in their not so ordinary day-to-day lives on and off the job
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. The Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> This is a series of snippets compiled of ideas I couldn't find room for in any full length Chicago Fire stories I'm currently doing. Hope you enjoy!

The Morning After

Severide unlocked his apartment door and helped Casey walk in. The Truck lieutenant was half leaning on Kelly and just about to fall down laughing. They'd just gotten back from the New Year's Eve party at Molly's bar. Everybody had been there and they'd all had their fair share to drink, but Severide was still sober enough to drive the both of them home. It wasn't so much that Casey was too inebriated, it's just that he hadn't been able to calm down.

"Everybody else will be on the road soon, the streets are going to be hell," Kelly told Casey as he walked him over to the couch. "You stay here tonight and I'll give you a lift back to your place tomorrow."

Casey was at a point he could hardly even make any noise, he was having a hard enough time just breathing, but he nodded in agreement.

"Are you going to be okay?" Kelly asked sarcastically.

Casey pressed a hand against his face and tried to control himself. It took a couple tries but he finally calmed down.

"Yeah," he said with a small snort.

Kelly paused, and said, "Well, this is definitely going to be one New Year's Eve party nobody forgets."

"Especially since the invention of social media," Casey added.

Now Kelly was having trouble to not start laughing all over again as he went to the closet and dug out come bedding for Casey to make up the couch with.

"How much did Capp have to drink tonight?" Casey asked, "Do you know?"

"Either too much, or not enough," Kelly answered as he tossed a flannel blanket and a pillow at Casey, who despite his somewhat tipsy state, had enough coordination to catch them before they hit him in the face.

"I mean I know he's crazy in general, but I think even he's going to regret this one tomorrow," Matt said as he placed the pillow on the armrest and laid down immediately and just draped the blanket, still folded up, over the top half of his body.

"I want to know..." Kelly saw the position Casey was in, and went over to the couch and untied his shoes and pulled them off so his feet didn't sweat all night, and continued his original thought, "I want to know what the hell he was thinking!"

"He's your guy, Severide, you tell me," Casey said, his eyes half closed from exhaustion, but a big knowing smirk still beaming on his face.

The party at Molly's had started off like the ones they'd had every year before. Aside from the crew of Firehouse 51, the bar had been pretty decently packed with non-regular customers. It was definitely unlikely Herrmann would have any gripes about their profit for the night. Everybody was so involved in what they were doing, it didn't dawn on anyone that Capp had gone missing sometime during the night. Closer to midnight his absence became noticeable, and just as everybody was starting to question what happened, the midnight countdown began, and as soon as everybody was hailing in the new year, Capp came charging into the room wearing nothing but a white pair of underwear and a sash haphazardly torn from a bed sheet, with the words 'Baby New Year' messily scrawled on it in magic marker ink. Half of the people in the bar spat out their drinks in shock at the sight that suddenly beheld them, everybody else instantly busted out laughing, except for Otis who had managed to keep a straight face long enough to say, "Now that's one _ugly_ baby!" before he too doubled over laughing his head off.

That had been over an hour ago, and Casey had just finally managed to stop laughing about it. Severide had been so stunned, because as usual, nobody had any idea that Capp had anything planned, at first he had no idea how to react, and after the initial shock wore off he found himself about to hit the floor laughing as well, but he'd managed to pull himself together far quicker than Casey had, or for that matter, most of the people at the bar.

Casey clamped both hands over his mouth as he started to laugh again, just thinking about it. But he composed himself and asked Kelly, "How long do you think he'd been planning that?"

"After all these years I've found out it's best not to think too much about how or why Capp does _anything_ he does," Kelly said in response.

Casey hit his head back against the pillow as a low series of chuckles worked their way loose.

"Casey," Kelly tried to sound serious but he found his own voice breaking as another batch of guffaws threatened to bubble over, "It's not funny," and his voice broke as he started snickering at the memory of that image.

"No, it's _hilarious_ ," Casey replied as his voice climbed several decibels in a series of high pitched laughs.

Kelly watched Casey as he lay flat on his back, his eyes squeezed shut as he spent another minute in a complete fit, then he seemed to regain control of himself.

"Oh well, I suppose it's a good omen if you can start off the new year with a good laugh," Casey's voice cracked at the last word but otherwise he appeared calmed down.

"And thanks to the pictures everybody took, I have a feeling a _lot_ of people are going to be laughing about it for a _long_ time," Kelly responded.


	2. Lost in Translation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While readers will possibly see a similarity to this chapter and the beginning of "All the Proof", I would like to go on record stating this idea occurred to me the night before the episode aired. Hope you enjoy!

Lost in Translation

It had actually started out as a slow shift, until 9:30 A.M. anyway. Then Truck had been called out for a possible gas leak. Seemed routine based on the information given by dispatch. Actually arriving on the scene was another matter altogether. Somehow in the time it took for them to roll up to the apartment complex, a five car pileup had occurred in the middle of the street and only half of the people involved had gotten out of their cars to try and kill one another, so Rescue Squad and Ambo had been called in as well to tend to the others, and both of them arrived shortly after Truck did.

The apparent owner of the building was a middle aged man with a slight build and dark hair, dressed in dirty jeans and an off-white work shirt and stood out in the yard and told Casey, "Some of the tenants have been calling all morning complaining of a weird odor. We'd been having issues with the sewage system and had plumbers out here five times in the last two months to work on it, I figured more of the same."

"Anybody complain of a gas smell?" Casey asked.

"Nobody specified, some of the tenants are ESL speakers so I have no idea if they just didn't say anything or what."

"How many tenants you got?" Casey looked up at the six story building.

"38 occupants in 17 apartments."

"They're still in there?"

"I honestly don't know, some were already coming out when I arrived but nobody knows anything for sure," the owner said. "Some of them are older people, paranoid, they don't answer the door, they don't have phones."

"Boy you got some real winners here by the sounds of it," Herrmann commented as he came up to them.

"Let's sweep the floors and see what we find," Casey told the others.

"On it, Lieutenant," Cruz said.

Casey turned back to the landlord and asked, "You got keys to the apartments?"

"Some of them changed locks and didn't bother telling me until after the fact," he replied simply.

Casey turned to the others and told them, "Alright, anybody doesn't answer, kick the door in."

"Are you serious?"

Casey turned back to the landlord and shot him a death glare. "We're not going to take a chance that somebody already succumbed to the gas and is laying unconscious in their apartment, got it?"

"Alright, fine," he conceded.

Casey hollered over to the paramedics who were getting one of the pileup victims settled on a backboard, "How many more Ambos on the way?"

"Three more en route," Sylvie answered, motioning that it would be enough to accommodate everybody Rescue was pulling out of their cars.

"Tell dispatch to send a couple more, if we find anybody we'll have to get them checked out for gas inhalation."

"On it, Casey!" Brett called back.

"Everybody move in!" Casey told his men as they masked up.

* * *

"Fire department! Gas leak, everybody get out!" Herrmann pounded on one of the doors on the third floor.

There was no response there but across the hall a door opened and a couple teenagers looked out. Christopher hollered over to them, "Anybody in there, get out, there's a gas leak in the building!"

"Are you serious?" the boy asked.

"Hey! Do I look like I'm joking? Get the hell out!"

The two of them tore out of the apartment and rushed down the stairs. Herrmann turned around and kicked the door in and entered. "Fire department! Call out!"

He went from room to room and checked, it looked like whoever lived there was out for the day. He headed back out to the hall and went to the next door.

"Fire department! Gas leak! We're evacuating the building!"

The door opened and a woman ran out with her toddler, the noise had also been enough to get the attention of five tenants across the hall.

"Hey, can anybody tell me if any of these apartments are empty?" Herrmann asked them.

One of the men pointed to the apartment at the end of the hall on the right side. "That's the only other one rented on this floor, I think she's still inside."

"Okay, thanks, everybody get out!" Herrmann told them. He went over to the last door and pounded on it, "Fire department, gas leak!"

The door opened and a short, heavy set, older woman with dark hair wearing a house dress and a scarf over her hair, spoke too fast for Herrmann to understand what she was saying.

"We got a gas leak in the building, you gotta clear out," he told her.

The woman responded and Herrmann still couldn't understand what she was saying, and he realized it wasn't because she was talking too fast, it was because she wasn't speaking English, somehow this didn't deter him from trying again.

"Everybody's evacuating, there's a gas leak, you gotta go outside," he said.

The woman shook her head and seemed to be arguing with Herrmann even though he had absolutely no idea what she could be arguing about. He tried to explain it to her again and even moved to take her by the arm and walk her out, but the woman screamed at him and tried to shut the door on him.

"Hey, lady!" Herrmann forced the door open, "Now's not the time to be playing games, we gotta get out of here."

The woman retreated to her kitchen and Herrmann followed after her, trying to talk some sense into her. He removed his mask and helmet momentarily to try again. Guessing that she hadn't been born here, it occurred to him maybe he looked too much like 'authority' for her comfort.

"Lady, I don't know what you're doing, but you gotta-"

The woman started yelling at Herrmann as she picked up two bunches of celery off the table and used them to hit him on the head and both sides of his face.

"Ow! Lady, stop that, ow! What're you-ow! Will you cut that out? This is seri-ouch!" Herrmann tried to grab the celery away from her but she was too fast, and any further attempts to explain the situation was quickly lost.

"Herrmann!" Cruz stuck his head in the doorway, "What're you doing?"

"Ow!" Herrmann took a step back and turned to Cruz, gesturing to the woman, "This crazy woman won't leave!" He turned back towards her and tried to grab her but she hit him again with both sleeves of celery.

Cruz shook his head, wondering what the hell Herrmann had gotten himself into now, and he went over to assist, and he heard the woman screaming.

"Ow! Cut that out!" Herrmann finally grabbed the celery away from her and told Cruz, "She thinks she's the Swedish Chef or something."

Cruz shook his head, "No, that's not Swedish, it's Russian." He raised a finger to get Herrmann's attention and moved forward. He raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture and said something to the woman that Herrmann had no idea what the hell it was. Herrmann stood back and watched the woman, who seemed to understand what Cruz was saying, and she spoke back to him. Cruz made a few gestures with his hands as he continued to speak slowly and calmly, and Herrmann was in awe. The two of them actually seemed to be holding a conversation with one another. The woman made a couple movements with her hands that Herrmann took as meaning she finally understood what was going on, and she said something in confirmation and moved to grab her purse.

Herrmann stepped over to Cruz and asked in his ear, "What the hell did you just say to her?"

Joe turned to him and admitted, "I have no idea."

Herrmann scoffed and rolled his eyes. Cruz continued, "But after listening to Otis and Baba talk to each other for 6 months, I thought I'd try faking it."

"Well you seem to have faked it very realistically," Herrmann said, "now let's get out of here."


	3. Strange Bedfellows

Strange Bedfellows

Kelly Severide had been watching a Blackhawks game on TV when he suddenly heard a whining surging sound, then suddenly everything went quiet and his apartment was plunged into darkness. It took a second for him to actually realize what had happened. He got up from the couch and made his way over to the window and looked out, and felt his heart drop.

Everything was dark. There were no lights in any of the apartments across the street, the street lamps were out, everything was out, all he could see were the headlights of a few cars driving along in the street. The only way he could see anything was from the moonlight shining on the snow that covered every single thing outside his apartment window. Just _great_. The whole power grid was probably out, and it was 10 below out. _Fabulous_.

His cell phone started ringing, and Kelly wondered who could possibly have that kind of timing, at least it lit up so he could find it. It was Casey calling.

"Let me guess, you too?" he asked.

"What the hell happened?" Casey asked. There was some static over the line.

"Looks like we're in a power outage, is it your block too?" Kelly asked.

"I'm not home," Casey told him.

"Where are you?"

There was some noise in the background, when Casey talked again it sounded like his nerves were about shot.

"I'm about five blocks from your place...everybody's driving like a lunatic, can I stay at your place tonight?"

"What?"

"I have a feeling I won't make it back to my apartment alive tonight if I try making it," Casey's tone told Severide he wasn't joking.

Kelly just could imagine all the drivers on the road freaking out when all the lights along the streets went out, and he agreed that was the last place Casey needed to be right now.

"Can you get here okay?"

"I'll be there in a couple minutes."

"Okay, I'll let you in," Kelly told him.

There was a pause, then Matt responded, "Thanks, Kelly."

Kelly hung up and tried to remember where he left his flashlight. He used the illumination from his phone to make his way over to the kitchen and opened the junk drawer at the end of the counter, there was an assortment of old screwdrivers and hammers and an ice pick, but no flashlight. It had been a long time since he'd actually needed it. He opened the cupboards over the sink, and working with what little light he had, didn't see a flashlight, but did see a box of votive candles. He also found a box of matches in the cupboard, perfect since that was the only way he'd be getting the stove lit until the power came back on. Thank God that wasn't electric too. He took the candles down, fished a plate out of the dish rack, poured a few candles onto it and lit them to get some light on the subject so he could better look around the apartment.

Somebody was knocking on the door.

Kelly carried the plate in one hand as he went over to the front door and asked, making sure it wasn't one of the city's numerous crazies taking advantage of the blackout to go looting, "Casey?"

"Let me in," he heard Matt's voice from the other side of the door.

Kelly undid the locks and let Casey in.

"What happened?"

"It's freezing out there!" Casey announced as he walked in, hugging his coat tight against his body.

"Ain't gonna be much better in here," Kelly said as he pushed the door shut with his hip and relocked it. "You okay?"

"I was on the road when the power went out," Casey said, clearly shaken up but trying to hide it, "everybody panicked, a couple cars flipped over, another went into a ditch, you could _see_ flashing lights on the way, but I knew if I stuck around I'd be there all night..." he shivered as he finally took his coat off and said, "all I wanted to do was get home, but I don't want to risk running into 50 more nuts like that on the road."

"I'm glad you came here," Kelly told him.

Casey noted the candles on the plate. Severide set it down and explained, "I'm trying to find a flashlight."

"Interesting," Casey noted. "Where'd you last see it?"

Kelly did a double take. "Smartass."

"Uh...is it alright if..." Casey motioned towards the couch.

"Oh, yeah, hang on," Kelly went over to the closet and opened the door, he grabbed a flannel blanket with one hand and tried to pull it down from the top shelf, but it wouldn't budge, then it gave way and unraveled as it fell on him, and he heard a familiar metal clink in the process. He knelt down and found the flashlight and turned it on.

"Well things are starting to look up," he commented as he picked up the blanket and handed it to Casey.

"Thanks...I really appreciate this, Kelly," Matt told him.

"No problem. I just hope they can get the power back on before too long, or this city's gonna riot."

* * *

Since there wasn't much to do with no power, Casey got settled on the couch and Kelly decided to call it an early night around 11:30. He changed into his warmest pajamas and crawled into bed and shortly after fell asleep.

By 12:05, Casey quietly crept into Severide's bedroom, wrapped in the flannel blanket like a mummy, and he softly padded over to the bed, where Kelly was obliviously asleep. Matt leaned down and whispered into his ear, "Kelly..." no response, he tried again, "Kelly..." Again, nothing, Casey pulled back, and asked again, much louder this time, "KELLY!"

"AHHH!" Severide shot up in his bed.

"Oh good, you're awake," Casey sarcastically replied.

"What is it? What happened?" Kelly asked as he tried to figure out where he was and what was going on since it was still too dark to see anything. Then he realized who was talking to him, hit his head back against the pillows and asked, "What do you want, Casey?"

Matt sighed as he explained, "There's a draft in the living room...can I stay in here with you?"

It was obvious from his tone that he was miserable, and any arguments Severide might've had about letting Casey in his bed suddenly died on his lips.

"...Sure," he said as he reached over and pulled the covers down.

Casey went towards the door and shut it to keep the cold air out, then went over to the bed and burrowed under the covers.

"Goodnight, Casey."

"Goodnight."

* * *

12:25-

Kelly coughed and it caught in his throat, he was choking, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, even through his nose he couldn't breathe. He opened his eyes and saw very little from the light coming in the window reflecting off the snow. He could make out somebody hovering over him and realized his nose had been pinched shut. He struggled with the other person and finally broke loose from their grip on his nose.

"Casey, what the hell are you doing?"

"You're snoring loud enough to wake the dead!" Casey complained.

"So you're trying to _kill_ me?" Kelly asked.

"I can't sleep, you make more noise than a garbage disposal!" Casey told him.

"Oh for crying out loud," Kelly said as he turned to face away from him.

* * *

12:43-

Kelly felt his eyes bulge, and turned over and jabbed Casey in what he guessed to be his shoulder, to wake him up.

"Ah! What is it?" Casey asked.

"Keep your feet on your side of the bed and stop pressing them against my ass," Kelly told him. "They're freezing!"

"I know that, I was trying to warm them up," Casey replied.

"You are sick, you know that?"

"I'm _cold_!"

Severide sighed as he threw back the covers and got out of bed. Casey couldn't see what he was doing but it sounded like he went over to the closet and was rifling through it. Then everything was quiet. He heard the floorboards creak as Severide came back over, and felt a sudden breeze that chilled him just before he felt something heavy hit him, he felt it and realized it was another blanket.

"There, problem solved. Now go back to sleep," Kelly told him.

"I'm trying to go to sleep."

"Don't try, _do_ it," Kelly said.

* * *

1:38-

"OUCH!"

Kelly shot up in bed as he simultaneously heard Casey scream, and felt the whole bed shake.

"What happened?"

Casey leaned against the side of the bed and groaned, "I kicked the bedstead."

"What're you doing up?" Kelly asked.

"I went to the bathroom," Casey answered defensively as he climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up, "I was trying to make my way back in the dark."

"Why didn't you just turn on a flashlight?" Severide snidely asked as if it was the most basic concept in the world.

"Because I didn't want to wake you up!" Casey replied in an aggravated hiss of a whisper.

"Well you suck at that," Kelly told him.

In the dark Severide heard Casey moan, and would almost swear he even heard a couple small whimpers, but they quickly subsided as he heard Casey moving around and the blankets and quilts rustling with his movements.

* * *

2:09-

Casey felt his legs knocking together, he could feel gooseflesh under his sweatshirt. It finally dawned on him the reason he was so unbearably cold was he wasn't covered up. He was curled on a ball on his side of the bed and all the covers were gone. He turned over and realized they were all bunched up over Severide, who as far as Casey could tell was in a dead sleep. Casey resentfully shoved Kelly towards the edge of the bed and heard him yelp, then a crash, and a pained groan.

"What now?" Kelly demanded to know as he got back on the bed and brought the covers back with him.

"That's for stealing my blanket," Casey told him.

"What?"

"I'm freezing to death over here!"

"Why didn't you just say so?" Kelly asked as he felt along the blankets, found one that wasn't tucked in at the foot of the bed and tossed it over to Casey's side.

"I need to sleep," Casey whined exhaustively.

"Then _go_ to sleep," Kelly told him.

* * *

2:45-

Kelly woke up because he felt something touching his neck, freakishly coinciding with the nightmare he'd just been having about a vampire trying to bite him. He laid perfectly still and tried to figure out what was going on, and it occurred to him he was feeling somebody's breath against his neck, the breath was cold. Then he also realized that somebody had their arm draped over his waist, and he could feel somebody's weight pressing against his ribs. And finally he realized it was Casey, who had curled up against him in his sleep, and was currently dead to the world.

Several different ideas were running through Severide's head all at the same time, half of them different ways to get Casey off of him. He knew that Casey couldn't help it because he was asleep and didn't know what he was doing, but...he realized he couldn't do it. They'd both been trying to sleep all night, so far with very little success...no, he could deal with it for one night, maybe now they could _both_ get some sleep. Kelly stretched his hand out to figure out where the covers were and drew them up on both of them, since he couldn't see what he was doing, he thought he pulled the blankets halfway up Casey's face, but as long as he wasn't complaining, Kelly was going to leave it alone. He had to admit it was warmer this way, not entirely unpleasant. He got his weight slightly adjusted so Casey wasn't pressing on his ribs as much, and finally, almost absently, wrapped an arm around Casey's shoulders, and listened to the quiet, even breaths of the man next to him, and slowly fell back asleep.

* * *

7:25-

Kelly opened his eyes and noticed the snow outside looked lighter and realized it was morning, and hopefully that meant the sun would actually come out later. He tried to move but he was tangled in all the covers, he turned his head and saw Casey hadn't moved and was still on his side, with one of the flannel blankets covering his nose. Severide looked around the apartment and realized the power was still out, he was _not_ looking forward to getting out of bed. They didn't have to be at work until tomorrow, so there wasn't anything really pressing, especially with the whole block still in a blackout, but he decided they might as well face the day and get it over with. He nudged the Truck lieutenant with his shoulder.

"Hey, Casey, wake up, it's morning."

Matt took in a deeper breath than before and slowly opened his eyes, he pulled the blanket down and sat up.

"What time is it?"

Kelly reached over and grabbed his phone.

"Almost 7:30."

Casey reluctantly got out of bed, "I should be able to get back to my apartment now."

"You want to stick around for a few minutes, I'll make us some coffee," Kelly told him.

Casey turned back to him. "How? I happen to know all you have is the electric coffee maker in the kitchen."

* * *

The whole apartment was freezing cold by this time. Kelly filled a saucepan with water, put it on the stove, turned the knob to 'light' and when it clicked, he struck a match and held it towards the gas and a blue flame sparked to life under the burner. He turned back towards Casey, who was still wrapped up in a flannel blanket practically up to his eyeballs.

"It'll be a few minutes."

"Since when do you drink instant?" Casey asked.

Kelly reached up and opened the cupboard door and pulled out a jar. "Since this isn't the first power outage I've been in, and that's not enough of an excuse to go without coffee," he explained.

"Hey, uh...thanks for letting me stay here last night," Casey told him. "I really appreciate it, and I know it wasn't easy."

Kelly tried to shrug it off but a small laugh worked its way loose as he replied, "Actually it wasn't one of the more livelier nights I ever had."

They both had a laugh at that.

After a few minutes the water started to boil, Kelly poured it into two mugs and they were both taking a sip of the first hot beverage either of them had had in almost 24 hours, when suddenly the room got bright, and through the wall to the living room they could hear the TV blaring away.

"Hey the power's back on!" Casey realized.

"Thank God," Kelly said.

"I don't know, I think I'd rather be in a blackout in winter than the dead of summer," Casey replied as he unraveled the blanket and folded it over a chair.

"And you call yourself a fireman, we're supposed to thrive in a dead heat."

"In a fire, sure, you want to sit around 51 with 30 sweaty guys and no air conditioning for 24 hours?"

"Eeeh, good point," Kelly nodded.

Casey finished his coffee, and told Severide, "I'm gonna get going. Thanks again."

"No problem," Kelly said as Casey put on his coat and was out the door.

Despite the noise of the electronics suddenly coming back to life, the apartment was silent after that. Kelly stood there for a minute, thinking to himself, if he was completely honest with himself, it hadn't been that bad of a time last night. He actually found himself almost wishing they'd have another power outage...in May.


	4. Hit and Run

Hit and Run

A call had come in for Truck, Squad and Ambo to respond to a multiple vehicle accident, other than that and the address, nothing was known about what they were going to be stepping into. Everybody suited up and drove out of 51, everybody mentally going over what they could most likely expect just based on the sheer number of pileups they'd responded to over the years. There was no way to ever anticipate what they would find, but there were some things more commonly found in car accidents than others.

"What do you think, drunk driver or some goober on his phone?" Capp asked as they got ready. As many tragedies as they saw on a regular basis, a sense of humor was mandatory if you were going to survive the job, that was strictly for _after_ the call though, _on_ the call they compensated by taking bets on what the likely cause of the call was.

"Too early for _most_ drunk drivers," Severide responded, not that he thought that actually mattered, still he responded, "My money's on somebody not paying attention." That's the way most of them were, it wasn't even just the criminal disregard for human life, most accidents were simply somebody looking away at the wrong moment, and then...

"What the-"

That was all that was heard from Tony before the sound of the brakes drowned out everything else, and what happened happened so fast and so suddenly that the others were thrown completely forward and then about fell flat on their backs as the engine roared to a sudden stop.

"Tony, what the hell happened?" Severide asked as he regained his balance.

In the driver's seat, Tony just stared straight ahead, both hands in a white knuckled grip on the wheel, he didn't even move.

"Oh my God," he said distantly. "Oh my God..."

"What is it?" Capp asked. They looked out the windshield but they couldn't see anything.

"I didn't see her," Tony said, still staring straight ahead at the road. "I didn't see her."

Severide and Capp looked at each other and exchanged a mutual look of horror.

They all jumped out of the truck, Severide radioed dispatch to send an additional ambo their way and informed them they had a possible hit and run victim and mentioned another Rescue Squad would have to be called in to the pileup. Everybody looked around but they didn't see a woman anywhere. It was a pretty empty intersection, a few parked cars up and down the street but no traffic and no people.

"Where was she?" Kelly asked.

"She just..." Tony was white as a sheet as he tried to form the words to explain, "she just ran out in front of the rig, I couldn't...I couldn't stop in time..."

A sudden realization washed over all of them as they turned back towards the truck that had reached a dead stop in the middle of the road. Severide crouched down and felt his stomach drop as he saw a white sneaker. He ran around to the back of the truck and crouched under it and saw an outstretched hand with manicured nails. The hand was attached to a very thin wrist, and he was able to make out a sleeve just above the elbow. All of the firefighters felt their breath leave them as they heard a low hissing sound under the truck and realized it was the woman breathing.

"Ma'am, can you hear me?" Kelly asked as he proceeded to slide under the truck.

"...Yes..." a voice rang back towards him uncertainly. He couldn't see her face, he couldn't tell how old she was. He pressed his head against the asphalt for a better look, he could make out a cheap chain bracelet on the wrist and the shirt she wore was green and gold striped.

"Ma'am, we're gonna get you out of here, we've got an ambulance on the way, can you tell me your name?"

The hand moved, and he could see her face now. She was just a kid. She didn't look older than 17. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail and there were streaks of dirt covering her face from where she'd thrown herself on the pavement to avoid being hit by the truck.

Kelly heard a vehicle pulling up and crawled back out, expecting to see the ambulance, instead he saw Casey hopping out of Truck.

"What happened?" he asked as they came up on the scene, "Is everybody okay?"

Severide wasn't even sure how to explain what had happened. The sound of a pained sigh drew his attention back to the girl, who was pulling herself along on her hands and stomach.

"Whoa, don't move!" Kelly told her.

"Severide, what happened?" Casey asked as he crouched down beside the Squad lieutenant for a better look. "Oh my God."

"What is it, lieutenant?" Herrmann shouted from where he and the others stood as they piled out of the truck.

"Stay there!" Casey ordered his men. The girl seemed willing to come out of her own volition, and not having any idea what was going on, he didn't want to risk too many people making her cagey until he could better assess the situation.

"I'm...fine..." the girl shakily answered as she slowly crawled out from under the truck.

Despite Severide's protests she needed to stay where she was until EMS could check her over for any spinal injuries, the girl pulled herself up to her full height, and then the answer was obvious why and how she'd thrown herself under the Squad truck with no injuries. She was tall and barely looked 90 pounds, anything on the underside of the truck that could've hit her missed her completely.

The knees and thighs on her blue jeans were torn open from the pavement, she had a few scrapes and cuts but otherwise didn't appear to be harmed. Her whole body wavered, and she fell down, both lieutenants just caught her at the last second before she hit the ground.

"I told you not to move," Kelly told her as he could hear the ambo's sirens in the distance, "in a minute we'll get a C-collar on you and on a backboard and-"

As Severide talked, Tony and Capp made their way over to them as Tony tried to figure out what the hell he was going to say, when suddenly the girl looked towards him and let out a loud and sudden scream, one that didn't seem to fit her voice whatsoever but would've been more suiting for a 40 year old smoker, and despite the two lieutenants trying to restrain her, tried to jump to her feet and get away. 90 pounds soaking wet or not, she was almost strong enough to break loose from both their grips, and both firefighters had to fight like hell to restrain her as she continued to scream, and it took a minute for them to realize she wasn't just yelling in terror, she was _saying_ something. Over her screams, all of them were able to make out her repeating over and over in a brash but hysterical voice, "He'll kill me! He'll kill me! He'll kill me! He'll kill me! He'll kill me!"

The expression on Tony's face looked like somebody just kicked him in the stomach.

The ambulance pulled up and two paramedics got out, and one of them was-

"Chout, for once I'm glad to see you," Casey said as he and Severide wrangled the girl, "give us a hand over here, will you?"

"Sure thing, Casey, what happened?"

"We're not exactly sure, we need to get her loaded up and to Med so the doctors can see what's wrong with her."

"Did she get hit by a car?" Chout asked.

"Not exactly," Severide said. The girl was still screaming, and kept trying to break loose, Severide added to the paramedic, "Do you have something in there to calm her down?"

"If she's in shock I wouldn't recommend it."

"That seems to be the word," Casey said as between the three of them they eased her on a backboard then on a gurney where she had to be strapped down to stop fighting them. As the paramedics took her away and the rest of the crew from 81 came over, Casey turned to Kelly and asked, "What happened?"

"She ran in front of the truck, Tony couldn't stop," Kelly answered.

"He _hit_ her?" Herrmann asked.

"I don't think so...she...it looks like she dove under the truck and just missed getting hit," Kelly explained.

Casey looked around and asked, "Where'd she come from?"

"I don't know," Tony told him. "She just ran out in the middle of the intersection...we had our sirens on, she _had_ to know we were coming."

Casey looked at him. "You think she was trying to kill herself?"

"She wouldn't have ducked if she was," Kelly said.

"I swear to God, I didn't see her, I didn't mean for this to happen."

"It's alright, Tony, nobody's blaming you," Kelly told him.

They heard other approaching sirens and saw a couple police cars heading their way.

"Yeah? We'll see about that," Tony said as he absentmindedly wrung his hands.

"HEY!" Capp called over to them from the intersecting street, "Over here!"

"What is it?" Severide asked as they headed over to see what he'd found.

"What the hell?" Otis asked.

"Oh man!" Cruz exclaimed.

Sprawled over a storm drain by the curb was the body of a middle aged man who looked like he'd been hit by a car.

" _Him_ I never saw," Tony told the others, "just the girl."

"And he's too far back for the truck to have hit him," Kelly observed.

"But maybe that's what she meant when she said 'he'll kill me'," Casey said with a shake of his head, "Not Tony."

The patrolmen got out of their cars and started questioning the firefighters about what had happened. Even though everyone knew that Tony wasn't at fault for what had happened, everybody knew better than to just assume the police would draw the same logical conclusion. While he spoke with one of the cops and explained from his side of it what had taken place, Kelly and Casey huddled together to talk amongst themselves.

"What do you think?" Casey asked.

Kelly shrugged. "If we could get to Med and talk to her we'd probably know what happened."

"She's in shock, she's in _no_ condition to tell anybody anything," Casey reminded him.

Kelly looked up the street and thought of something, and merely responded, "Picture's worth a thousand words, video's got to be worth more."

"Huh?"

Severide pointed to the houses on both sides of the street and said, "I'll just bet you somebody there's got a security camera running, and if they do..."

Casey looked at him and nodded and said, "Let's go mention it to the patrolmen."

* * *

While the police investigated the accident, they'd let Tony return with the others to the firehouse, though after what had happened he was clearly in no shape to drive. During the ride back he didn't say a word to anyone, didn't make eye contact with anyone, and clenched his hands together until they were both turning blue, his face had turned from white to gray and he looked like death warmed over.

When they finally returned to 51 and got out of the trucks, he turned to Severide and told him, "20 years I've been on this job, never had _anything_ like this happen... _never_...don't make any sense."

"They'll get it figured out, Tony, don't worry about it."

"Yeah, easy for you to say, you weren't the one driving." With that, he turned and stalked off to explain the situation to Boden, and everybody took the hint to stay out of his way and not initiate contact.

"The cops don't _really_ think Tony's responsible, do they?" Otis asked.

"Anybody with a brain would know this is an accident, something that couldn't be avoided," Herrmann said.

Casey leaned over to Severide and murmured, "I'm gonna call Med and see what they know."

"Okay, thanks."

"So what do we do now?" Mouch asked.

"I don't know..." Severide shook his head. Then something came to him. "But I'm going to make sure they don't try pinning this on Tony."

"How?" Cruz asked.

"I'm going to reach out to Antonio and see what he can find out," Severide said.

* * *

It was nearing the end of shift and had been a tense night for everybody, nobody had gotten much sleep, when Severide came out of his quarters and asked Capp, he said that he never saw Tony in the bunk room. Just as everybody was getting ready for shift change, a familiar face appeared on the apparatus floor.

"Antonio, you find something?" Kelly asked.

"Yeah, yeah we found something alright," Antonio looked over at Tony, "Anthony Ferraris-"

"Don't tell me, I'm under arrest," Tony didn't sound too surprised, almost as if he'd been expecting it.

"No, in fact I've got something I think you'll want to see," Antonio responded as he took a tablet out of his jacket. To Severide he said,"We checked that street, we found a surveillance camera half a block up from the intersection, and working backwards from the footage we found, what we got was one very long and tiring jigsaw puzzle. Every time we found somebody with a camera, we got footage from a different angle, were able to trace it back to another camera up another block, up on another street, and put it all together."

"So what the hell happened?" Herrmann asked.

"The John Doe _was_ chasing the girl, clear up to the intersection where the Squad truck almost hit her...we lifted his prints and ran them through CODIS, we got one hell of a hit."

"Who is he?" Tony asked.

"His name was John Boles, but we found two dozen aliases listed for him. This guy has done time in prisons all over this country over the last 30 years."

"For what?" Severide asked.

"You name it: drugs, robbery, assault, blackmail, stalking, criminal threats, felon in possession of a firearm, choking, strangling, you name it, this guy did it, and got a slap on the wrist almost every single time, and was able to move on to a new city, new state, and start again."

"He have any warrants out on him?" Casey asked.

"No warrants but a dozen restraining orders from different women in five states...including Tanya Rutger."

"Who's that?"

"His wife...or I should say in the process of being his ex-wife...they've been married for two years, and she walked out three months ago, and then she started reporting to police that he was threatening her, harassing her, calling her 300 times a day, kicked in her door, chucked a Molotov cocktail through her window."

"And the cops _still_ didn't do anything?" Severide asked in disbelief.

"Wasn't our district, that's all I can say, or we would've been on this guy's ass and buried him" Antonio told them.

"So what's the connection between all that, and the girl he was chasing?" Mouch wanted to know.

"We contacted Chicago Med, they had her listed as Barbara Rutger, Tanya's daughter, 19 years old. We went to Med to question her...she'd disappeared when nobody was looking."

"What?" Casey asked.

"Patrol spotted her and picked her up two blocks from her home and brought her to 21 so we could question her," Antonio explained. "Boles had made threats against her mother, her, and her sister for months, but as much as the cops didn't take the threats against the wife seriously, they especially didn't think he'd actually target her kids. She was walking home, half a mile from the intersection, when he pulled up, got out of the car, grabbed her, and tried to throw her in the trunk of his car. We had her describe the car, we found it, still parked where he left it, the trunk unlocked, and inside the trunk we found three cleavers, one machete and a dozen various knives...this guy was actually going to take her out and dismember her."

"Oh God," Tony exhaled.

"From what she told us she managed to kick him and get loose, and that's when he started chasing after her."

"But what happened to _him_?" Kelly asked.

"Working our way back, we put all the footage from all the surveillance cameras together, and this was the end result," Antonio said as he started the video and held it up for everyone to see.

The less than crystal clear footage showed the man they'd found on the storm drain, chasing the girl up one street, she ran across the sidewalk, then ran out in the middle of the street as he was gaining on her, she turned at a corner, he followed, she turned at another corner, he was right behind her, she ran up to the intersection in question, concealed from the street by a row of parked cars, she ran right out in front of the Squad truck, and after a second's freeze, threw herself flat on the ground just before it hit her. At the same time, almost too far back from the camera to be seen, the man was struck by a speeding car that came out of nowhere from across the intersection and swerved around the truck that suddenly stopped in the middle of the street. It was a flashy silver sports car built low to the ground, that passed by in such a blur, nobody watching the footage was surprised that Tony hadn't seen it when he stopped the truck, especially given the state of shock he'd been in. The man rolled off the hood of the car as it drove down the street, and his body rolled onto the storm drain.

"Wow..." was the only thing Otis could say at first, then he added, "who'd ever think a hit and run could be a _good_ thing?"

"As a cop I'm not supposed to have this opinion, but there are some people in this world who just need to be killed, and John Boles was definitely one of them. Guy had balls enough to take out hits on two of the officers who arrested him at two different times in two separate states, luckily a jailhouse informant picked up on them both times so they were averted, the bottom line is he feared no one and nothing, and if that car hadn't mowed him down, he would've killed Barbara Rutger, and probably would've killed her sister, and her mother, and slipped out of Chicago undetected, and gone on to do it again to God knows how many unsuspecting victims."

"So...because Tony stopped the rig when he did..." Kelly started to put the pieces together.

"Sure seems to have inadvertently put everything into motion," Antonio answered. "Off the record, I hope we never find out who was driving that sports car, they did the world a favor." He extended his hand to Tony and added, "For your own part, I personally want to thank you."

It was all more than Tony could take in at that time, all he could think to say was, "Huh?"

"And...there's someone else," Antonio said.

Everybody heard the sound of somebody walking up the apparatus floor and turned and saw the girl, her torn clothes from yesterday replaced with a lighter pair of blue jeans and a black sweater, and she seemed to have more nervous energy in her body than she knew what to do with, she hugged her arms around herself and her knees knocked together like she was freezing, today more than yesterday right after the accident she had a borderline panicked doe-in-headlights look in her eyes. Nobody knew what to say.

Finally, she moved, and in a couple quick steps she crossed the floor over to Tony, put her arms around him and got out a shaky, "Thank you." Her voice broke and sobbing hysterically she told him, "Thank you for saving my life, he was gonna kill me!"

Tony didn't have any idea what to say in response to that. _Nobody_ did. Tony absently raised his arms and hugged the girl in return and, struggling to coherently form any words, just responded, "D-don't mention it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was largely inspired by the Dirty John case.


	5. A Ton of Fun

A Ton of Fun

"Hey Otis, I thought you weren't working here tonight," Casey said as he approached the firefighter behind the bar at Molly's. It wasn't the slowest night the bar had ever seen but it was pretty uneventful at the moment.

"I'm just helping out until my date gets here, and then I'll be out of here," Brian told the lieutenant as he wiped off the counter.

"Oh? Anyone we know?"

"I don't think so," he shook his head.

"You don't _think_ so?"

"It's a blind date," Otis admitted.

"Oh," Casey said.

"Cruz set it up."

"Cruz? _Why_?" Casey felt a need to ask. That definitely earned him a scowl from Brian.

"It's one of the women from the Zumba classes he teaches," Brian explained.

"Oh!" Casey's tone became notably more interested.

"He said her name's Alayna, apparently she's his prize student, whatever that means."

Casey hawed under his breath and commented, "Sounds promising. So what exactly do you have in mind?"

"Well obviously not just sitting around here all night," Brian answered, "I have a few general go-tos for a night out but I can better assess the situation once I've seen her and we've had a chance to get acquainted."

Casey nodded, "So, you don't have _any_ idea what she looks like?"

"Cruz said that she'd be wearing a red blouse...there've already been a few of those in here tonight but none of them are her," Otis gestured to some of the customers around the bar.

"You don't suppose this is just another one of his jokes, do you?" Casey asked, "Like the whole NASA thing?"

"Don't think I didn't wonder that," Otis told the lieutenant, "he gave me his word that she will be here before 9 o' clock, and he knows better than to lie to me...I know where he lives."

"True," Casey said.

Casey turned and took in a general view of the crowd that night, then his eyes widened and small sound caught in his throat. He turned back to Brian and said as he reached for his wallet, "You know what, Otis, I think I'm gonna cut out and call it a night..." he put a couple bills on the counter and told him, "And good luck on your date." With that, he turned to leave, struggling to keep a straight face.

Otis opened the register and put in Casey's money, when he heard a voice behind him.

"Excuse me, are you Brian Zvonocek?"

Growing up in Chicago, it was hard not to respond with a cautious 'that depends who's asking', but Brian knew that was a bad way to get business. He merely answered, "Why yes I am." He turned to the bar and saw a heavyset woman with lightly tanned skin, short wavy hair, dressed in a red T-shirt, blue stretch jeans, and she was standing far enough back from the bar he could also see white sneakers. "How can I help you?"

The woman smiled at him and answered, "I'm Alayna, your date tonight."

"Oh," Otis slowly did a double take as he realized what she was saying, and the surprise was evident on his face, "Oh! I thought...uh...Joe said you'd be wearing a red blouse."

"Eh, a miscommunication," she said as she extended a hand out to him, "I don't go too formal on first dates."

"I see, uh..." slowly shaking off his shock, Otis took her hand and shook it, "Nice to...meet you."

"Am I too early?" she asked.

"Oh, no, I'm just wrapping things up here...give me a minute and I'll be ready to go."

"Okay," she smiled at him.

Brian turned around and stormed over to Christopher and asked him in a firm whisper, "Herrmann, has Cruz been in tonight?"

"Uh, no," Herrmann turned towards him, "Why?"

Otis gestured over his shoulder and asked, "See that woman over there?"

Herrmann craned his neck to see.

"No, don't look!"

Herrmann scowled at him, "Then how am I supposed to see her?" He got on his toes for a better look and made a face, "Ooh...she's a big one, isn't she?"

"That's the woman Cruz set me up on a blind date with."

"What did you do to Cruz?" Herrmann asked.

"I am gonna kill him when I see him," Brian told Herrmann, "He said he was setting me up with one of his Zumba students."

"Huh...must be a beginner," Christopher suggested. "So what're you gonna do?"

"I don't have any choice, I gotta go out with her," Brian said.

"Okay...just a tip, _don't_ mention salad bars," Herrmann commented.

Brian made a garbled disgruntled sound in his throat as he turned around and put on the best face he could force, and asked Alayna, who had perched herself on a bar stool, "You ready?"

She smiled at him and asked, "What do you have in mind?"

"Oh...well..." he smiled and replied, "you lead."

"If you insist," she stood up. As they headed out, she put her hand on the door and mentioned to Brian, "I hope you can keep up."

He raised his eyebrows questioningly at her comment.

* * *

Brian's head was just about to explode from the echoes of the pins being knocked down all around him at the bowling alley. After he and his date left Molly's, first they'd gone to a burger joint for dinner, which hadn't surprised him, and they'd struck up a nice conversation over a couple of burgers and sodas. After that they'd gone to the batting cages, which did surprise him, he'd gone first and managed to hit about half of the balls fired at him, a couple came close to hitting him in the face, then it was her turn. As far as he could tell, Alayna was right handed, but when she put on the helmet and stepped up to bat, she'd done it left handed, and hit a couple of balls so hard he thought for sure there was going to be a hole in the chain-link.

"Did I mention I used to date one of the Chicago Cubs?" she asked nonchalantly when they ran out of quarters and got ready to leave.

Any preconceived notions Brian might've had about how their date was going to go flew out the window at that moment.

After that, they'd walked a mile over to a bowling alley. They'd bowled three games, and that was where they were at now. Brian looked up and saw Alayna coming back from the snack bar with two drinks and a sympathetic look on her face.

"Any luck yet?" she asked.

"Still stuck," Brian held up his hand that had a bowling ball impaled on three of his fingers.

Alayna set their drinks down and said, "I'll try again."

"You know," Brian braced himself in his seat, "this is actually not _the_ most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me in a bowling alley."

"Oh yeah?" she asked as she wrapped her arm around the ball and got ready to yank.

"Yeah, OW!" Brian felt like she was trying to take his whole hand off, but to his immense relief, the suction around his fingers finally released and Alayna just about fell back with the ball in hand.

"Well that was fun," she commented with a heaving breath as she sat down beside him and put the bowling ball on the chair next to her.

"Anyway, a couple years back, we respond to this call, guy got his hand caught in the pinsetter."

" _How_?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied, "anyway, we get him out, we're making our way back up the lane...and I slip and fall flat on my ass...and I'm trying to get up, and I just fall again, and if that weren't bad enough, we have an interim chief filling in for our chief who's laughing at me, calling me Gutterball...next thing I know everybody at 51 is calling me Gutterball, _off_ shift, _at the bar_."

"What's an interim chief?" Alayna asked.

"Substitute until a full time chief can take over," Otis told her.

"Huh," she hawed under her breath, and started to laugh as she said, "The name kind of implies he's got some shortcomings to overcompensate for."

"Huh?" Otis turned to her, and then her words hit him and he started laughing, "That's good, I never thought of that."

"So I guess there's no point in asking..." she nodded towards the ball.

"You've already beaten me two times, and especially in light of what just happened, I'd like to preserve a little dignity," Otis told her.

Alayna craned her neck around to look behind them and asked, "How about shooting some pool?"

Brian glanced towards the tables, "Well I don't guess I could get stuck on one of them...okay, let's try. Incidentally, do you play pool as well as you bowl?"

"You'll just have to find out," she said coyly as she took the ball over to the shelf and put it back.

* * *

"So can I ask you something?" Brian asked as they walked out of the bowling alley.

Their pool game had lasted 15 minutes, until they were down to the last two balls, then it took another 20 for either of them to sink theirs, Brian got the lucky shot that sank his striped. After that they'd gone over to the foosball table, despite the firehouse's own infamous 'Fiasco' with one several years ago, it had been a good game, until someone, he still wasn't sure which one of them did it, they were both one point away from winning and trying with all their might to get the last shot in, swung their men too hard and kicked the ball clear off the table and halfway across the bowling alley. After that they decided to call it good and walk out before anything escalated any further and they got thrown out. The night was chilly and the air was crisp, there wasn't as much traffic now as there was when they first arrived.

"Shoot," Alayna said as she steadily trudged along in the cold night air.

"Joe said that you're in his Zumba class."

"Oh yeah," she said with a small laugh, "the fat woman who can't keep time with the rest of the class."

Brian raised a hand as he tried to explain, "I didn't mean anything by..."

"No, it's fine, it's the truth," she told him, as nonchalantly as if she was giving him directions, "it's a two edged sword, you got a weight problem, you gotta be willing to put yourself out there to ridicule and public humiliation, in order to change anything. It's a bitch, but it doesn't have to stay that way."

"Joe said you're his prize student," Brian told her.

She laughed again, "Yeah, I've been going for 3 months, and I ain't quit yet...not much better than the first day when I collapsed in the middle of the class, but it's worth it."

"I guess so, you seem to be doing alright," Brian said, mentally calculating how far they'd walked all over the city that night so far, and even with the low temperature she wasn't winded yet.

As if she could read his mind, Alayna told him, "Walking doesn't bother me, never did...running, jumping...that's a different story." She patted her denim clad thigh and told him, "Short hamstrings, family trait, even when I was a 40 pound kid and we played tag, I could never run fast enough to catch anybody, and it wasn't 5 minutes until I was on the ground puffing and wheezing."

"You don't say," Brian looked at her.

Alayna pointed to a bench and they sat down, and she told him, "At the time I just thought it was because I was the smallest kid on the block. I didn't know at the time, nobody told me that because I was a preemie, my lungs never fully developed, which subjected me to every single respiratory infection that ever passed through our neighborhood. So I was sick a lot as a kid."

"Sorry to hear that."

"You do _not_ want to hear me cough," Alayna told him, "even when I'm not sick it sounds like I'm trying to hack up a lung. Nobody else in my family has that problem, anybody else coughs, they just cough, real simple and quiet, me, it sounds like a fog horn going off." She looked at him and said, "Understand, I'm not saying that's how I got fat...I couldn't run as a kid but I was very active, I rode three bikes until complete ruin, I ground the wheels on my roller skates down to nubs, I could do more pull-ups on the monkey bars at school than any other kid."

"Impressive," Brian responded genuinely.

"Yeah, but for some reason, I was still heavier than all the other kids my age, and it got worse after puberty, but that didn't stop me, I was still on the go all day every day...if you saw me, you wouldn't have known I weighed what I did...between 5th grade and when I finished college I put on 100 pounds, some of it was just growing up, some of it was I'd also done weight training for years so I had more muscle than my friends did, and the other part of it was I liked to eat and moderation wasn't a word in my vocabulary," Alayna told him. She shrugged and said, "Everybody loves to act like they know your whole life story just by looking at you...yeah it's true, you don't get this big overnight...but it's a lot easier to not realize how bad things are getting than people like to think."

Brian decided it was a good time to keep his mouth shut and see what happened next. He'd never had a date willing to reveal so much about themselves on the first date, least of all so much that wasn't pleasant to relive.

"First couple years out of college I was free and could pretty much do as I pleased...year after that, my aunt was diagnosed with cancer...my mom and I had to drop everything to take care of her full time...they were never close, but family's family, right? So we take it one day at a time and just hope for the best and help her out any way we can. And for the next three years, every day without fail, snow or shine, sickness or health, we clean her house, do her disgusting laundry, clean up after all her accidents that were side effects to the chemo and radiation...cooked her meals, did everything she asked because the doctors said if she moved around too much she'd bleed out...cleaning the bathroom was one of the worst, for a while...then they gave her two nephrostomy bags, then a colostomy bag, who do you think had to empty those, clean them out? Not her...never her...why should she do anything when we were right there and family was supposed to help each other? She kept going for treatments, and she got sicker from it, and she just got worse...then finally one day the doctors said they couldn't give her anymore treatments, the cancer had spread through her whole body, anymore treatments would kill her, and just go home and wait to die...and she did...and she made sure we were there every minute of the day tending to everything she wanted, and _nothing_ was ever good enough...when you're in a situation like that, you don't stop to think how it affects you, you don't realize that you are gradually falling into depression seeing this, being a part of it day in and day out and seeing no end in sight. Suddenly...there wasn't any time to do any of the stuff I used to, anything I wanted, I had to be on call every day...I had to do her shopping, run her errands, pay her bills, make her bank deposits, she had people coming to visit her, bring food, bring flowers, bring money, we had to pick up the house every time somebody was coming while she sat back and gave the orders, the women from her work would come and do Bunco parties, they'd started it years earlier, and every time she hosted, _we_ cooked, _we_ cleaned, _we_ set everything up and took it all down, and every time she made a big to do about how _she_ managed to do it all herself, she did _everything_ by herself. My mom would call me at all hours when I was out, Aunt Naomi fell down, we need to go pick her up, she's bleeding, we need to call the ambulance, we need to get the whole house ready for when she's released from the hospital...it's just never ending...and even if you love them, after a while you find yourself asking 'why don't they just _die_?', and when you _don't_ love them...you start asking that a lot sooner." She turned and looked at him and said with a weak laugh, "This is a hell of a thing to bring up on a first date, isn't it?"

"No, no, it's fine," Brian insisted.

"Anyway, the day finally came when she died...hip hip hooray, right? I should be happy, I have my life back...only by that time I had gotten used to sitting around the house doing little more than subconsciously emotionally eating...to some degree I always stayed active, most of it was just manual work around the house, I found time every summer to go swimming, I never took an elevator anywhere...but one day in the midst of it all, I put on a pair of jeans that I've worn for years, and I can't get them on anymore, not even a matter of they won't zip, I can't get them up my legs...somewhere between my aunt's diagnosis and her burial I put on 50 pounds. And of course, everybody loves to point out when you put on that much weight that you know it's happening so you should be able to stop it...let me tell you, it _does_ creep up on you...trade up 1X for a 2X, two sizes of jeans are only an inch apart, not a big deal...couple years go by, go up another size, so what? Then one day you really get a look at yourself in the mirror and wonder how the hell I got to this point? And it didn't go away when my aunt died, at that point I don't like to say I was in a depression but I was definitely in a funk over the way my life had gone...20s are supposed to be the best years of your life and most of mine were over and a large portion of them had all been wasted on an ungrateful woman who never did anything with her life, so decided it was fine to drain all she could out of ours. Nobody ever anticipates their lives turning out that way...over the next couple years I put on another 20 pounds...and yes, contrary to popular belief, I knew that was a problem and something had to be done, but when you get some peace and quiet for the first time in your life in years, you take advantage of it. Emotional stress is more tiring than physical stress, once my aunt was buried and all her affairs got settled, I didn't sleep much at night but I suddenly found myself sleeping through the better part of every afternoon for months on end...and the vicious cycle of resenting how my life ended up just repeated. There was no one moment where I decided something had to change, you know it for years, but there's always stuff going on that you push it off to the side and figure you'll deal with it later."

"Been there," Otis said, thinking back to his leukemia scare and the lengths he'd gone to to avoid finding out the answer. "So what finally happened?"

Alayna actually seemed amazed that he was still paying attention and seemed genuinely interested to find out more. She told him, "You can be tired of a situation you're in, but you have to be _really_ tired of it to finally do something about it, until you reach that point you can just keep your head down and muddle along as is." She said very simply, "I wanted my life back. But, I had not exactly been sitting idle all these years. I've been paying attention to all the breakthroughs in weight loss, and the hardest thing is just breaking away from what society tells us, that you have to take it off fast at any drastic cost. We know now that doesn't work, you take it off fast, you put it on faster, so I had to come to terms with the fact that it wouldn't be fast or easy. Way I've got it figured, you have to plan on at least a year to see real, long-term success, so the real challenge there is patience."

"Which nobody specializes in, trust me," Otis told her.

"Amen," she laughed. "But I decided to kill two birds with one stone. What the hell am I going to do until I actually lose the weight, hide in the house until everybody approves of how I look?" She shook her head. "Society can just deal with the fact that I'm here and I'm not hiding, and I'm going to enjoy my life _while_ I take this weight off...the burden is in their court now because I know I'm going in the right direction. So I go to the classes and I put up with the stares and snide remarks and even the pictures taken on everyone's phones." Alayna caught the look of outrage in Brian's eyes and quickly assured him, "Oh don't worry, Joe caught _one_ of the women doing that once and quickly showed her the door, the others got the message real quick if they wanted to stay and have him as their instructor, they had to behave, that's a very big motivator for them."

That got a laugh out of Brian.

"Anyway, it's been eight months so far," she told him.

"Whoa," that caught Brian by surprise, especially as he realized that that meant that she must've been a lot bigger initially than she was now.

"Part of why it feels so hopeless is where do you start? Especially with my background, it just felt like I should never have let myself get this far behind in the first place, how do I justify going back and starting over again now, when as a kid I could've done twice as much, twice as fast and twice as hard as I do now? But in the end, we all have to bite the bullet and begin in the beginning. So I started with low impact aerobics to get back in the swing of things...even if I get down to 100 pounds it's unlikely I'll ever be able to do anything high impact between my legs and my lungs, but I'm having a lot of fun finding that middle ground. My social calendar is actually very full these days. I take Joe's class twice a week, I go swimming three times a week. You'll never see me in a marathon, but I've walked two 5Ks this year."

"Oh wow," Brian felt his eyebrows jump.

"I'm the dead last one to finish, but I _finish_ ," Alayna told him with a hearty laugh. She uncrossed her legs and said, "Speaking of which, we better get back to our date before the whole night's over...incidentally am I still leading?"

For a moment Brian couldn't even comprehend forming any words. Unlike Severide, Brian had no problem looking for a serious relationship, and he'd had a few over the years that he thought were going someplace, all the same he'd never gone out with anyone with a story like he'd just heard and he wasn't even sure what the proper response was. Finally he settled for, "Sure...what've you got in mind now?"

* * *

Brian's lungs burned in his chest as he made his way down the stairs, keeping his hands on the rails incase he lost his footing. He'd had a lot of dates that got physical, but this was something new entirely.

Alayna was waiting at the bottom of the fire escape and clicked off the stopwatch on her phone. "27 seconds, that's great, right?"

Brian heaved in a breath, doubled over and answered, "In turnout gear, carrying a hose, that'd be great. What made you think of this?"

"Did I ever tell you I used to date a fireman?" she asked.

Brian tried to laugh but at the moment he didn't possess the lung capacity for it and instead he just about fell face first on the ground.

"You guys ever do that Firefighter Combat Challenge?" Alayna asked.

Otis straightened his spine and shook his head, "Uh no, no, we don't."

"How come?" she asked.

He opened his mouth to respond, then realized, "I don't know."

"Well, the one I used to date was training for it...don't know he actually made it, but he said all the guys who did, used this building to practice for it," she told him, "Sixth floor fire escape, just like they do in the competition. I'm trying to figure out who I need to talk to to see about getting a civilian version of these done, all the weights and obstacles, but for normal people, _without_ 80 pounds of regulation gear."

"Gotta tell you, I don't think there'd be a lot of takers on that one," Otis told her.

"Maybe not, but I wish somebody would, I'd have no problem trying it, and I know I would fail it and fail _hard_."

He looked at her and shrugged, "Then why would you want to do it?"

"To see how far I _could_ get. Can you time me now?"

Otis nodded as he took his phone out. "Yeah, get ready."

He watched as Alayna headed over to the bottom of the fire escape.

"Ready, set...go!"

With only the street lamp to see by, Otis watched as Alayna scurried up the fire escape, turning at each floor, the sound of her shoes clanging against the metal steps the only sound filling the night air. She reached the top, then turned around and scurried back down, like Brian, both hands on the rails. As she clattered down the last set of stairs, he looked at his phone and turned the timer off.

"37 seconds," he couldn't hide the shock from his face, "how..."

"Like you said," she told him as she tried to catch her breath, "It would be different with the turnout gear and a 40 pound hose...but given I'm carrying enough weight around for both of those things, I wouldn't say I did too badly."

Brian found himself laughing, and he asked her, "Do uh...you bring _all_ your dates here?"

"Not exactly the scenic route but it's good for some entertainment," she said. "Of course you realize, I can only date men who are in much better shape than I am."

Brian just about fell down laughing.

"None of them are serious," she told him. "I never dated when I was younger, I had a lot of hangups...I decided I might as well get out on the scene now that I still have some life in me, and I'm old enough to know what I'm after."

"Which is?"

"A good time, they don't last long, but there's always something left from each of them to remember."

"Oh please, don't share this with me," Brian put his hands over his ears.

Alayna poked him in the chest to get his attention, "I dated a fireman, and I dated a Cub, and I've dated a couple of Bears, also a tennis instructor, a personal trainer, a couple paramedics, a cop..."

"Quite a collection," Brian noted.

"And all of them have that same utter look of terror on their faces when they first meet me, as you had when I walked into the bar tonight," she said with a mischievous smile, which in turn transformed Brian's expression into yet another look of terror.

"I do a lot of blind dates, it's easier when they don't know what I look like," she explained. "By that time they realize how bad it'll look if they ditch me, and once they actually get to know me we actually wind up having a pretty good time. I have a certain type, all of them men with very physically demanding jobs, and I take away some pointers from each and every one of them to incorporate into my own life. The one thing you'll never see me dating is a Blackhawk."

Brian busted out laughing again as he guessed the reason why.

And in confirmation, Alayna told him, "You ain't _ever_ gonna see me on the ice with a couple little steel blades to hold me up."

Brian laughed so hard he could hardly breathe.

She smiled at him and asked, "Brian, do you know why Cruz set us up for a blind date?"

"Uh, no," Brian shook his head.

"Because he said we're a lot alike."

"Huh?" that caught him off guard.

Alayna giggled and explained, "He said that we're both in need of meeting someone new who likely won't turn into anything serious but in the meantime we could have a good time together. And you came very highly recommended."

"I did?"

"Yeah, he said you were a great guy who hadn't been out with a lot of women lately and needed to meet some new blood," she told him.

Brian stared at her for a couple seconds, then started laughing again and said only, "That seems to be the word for it."

The night air was getting colder and Otis pulled his jacket tighter and asked her, "You want to get out of here?"

"Sure...you know a good place to go dancing?" she asked.

He cocked his head and looked at her.

"The only way you'll ever see me run is to yell 'Fire!', but what I lack in speed, I make up for in endurance," Alayna told him and bumped her hip against his suggestively. "Ready to go?"

* * *

Cruz was waiting for him at 51 the next morning before shift started.

"Hey, how'd the date go last night?" he asked, perfectly cheerful as if he didn't have any idea what had happened.

"I hate you," Brian said simply as he marched over to his locker.

"What'd I do?" Cruz asked.

"First you catfish me, then you set me up with a woman who's 80 pounders heavier than me, and she has more stamina than I do!" Otis said.

"What're you talking about?" Joe asked.

Brian turned to him. "We walked all over Chicago until 3 in the morning, the better part of 6 hours walking all up and down this city in 30 degree weather, I'm chilled to the bones, my feet are killing me, I'm tired, and I'm on shift for the next 24 hours, I-hate-you."

"You didn't have a good time?"

"I had a great time, that's not the point," Brian told him. "I'm exhausted, and I got showed up by a woman whose idea of a good time is more physically demanding than a day at the gym. Is there a reason you couldn't have given me _some_ idea what to expect?"

"Otis, there's a reason why I set you up with Alayna. She's a fun person and I thought she'd have a good time with somebody from 51," Cruz said. "I can't go out with her, that violates our professional relationship. And you know Severide sure as hell wouldn't give her the time of day, he's too shallow."

"Huh, true," Brian realized.

"And Casey-"

"I don't even want to _think_ about that one," Otis told him.

Cruz looked at him and asked, "So?"

Brian looked back at him and parroted mockingly, "So-what?"

"You going out with her again?"

Otis seemed to actually consider it for a second before nodding, "Yeah...but definitely not when shift's the next day."

Cruz busted out laughing.


	6. Dead of Night

Dead of Night

Kelly Severide laid on his bunk in his quarters and stared up at the ceiling even though the whole room was nearly black. It had been a horrible shift, and he couldn't wait for 8 o' clock to come so he could go home and try to put the day behind him. He knew everybody felt the same way, even if they didn't admit it.

They'd been called to a multi-vehicle accident on the freeway, and in fact, so many vehicles had been involved, a second company had to be called in from a neighboring firehouse. There was never anything routine about any of the calls they got, but they'd responded to enough traffic accidents to know what they had to do, and get it done effectively and quickly.

There had been a candidate among the second company that responded to the accident. Young, eager, the way they all were, determined to jump in and help any way he could, ordinarily what everybody wanted in a candidate. He'd been helping to extract two people out of their car that was pinned against the fencing, the next thing anybody knew, one of the other firefighters was screaming, "Oh my God!"

A section of the fencing gave way and the candidate went over the edge and fell 50 feet. An additional ambo had been called in to assist, but the car almost went over the edge too and everybody had to scrambled to force it back. As soon as it was stable, Casey got a rope and rappelled down to try and assist the candidate, Severide was right behind him, but it was obvious it was too late. The ambulance seemed to get there just a few seconds after they touched down, they got the candidate loaded up and rushed him to Med, but by the time they finished on the overpass and everybody headed back to 51, the news had come in that he was DOA and there wasn't anything the paramedics or doctors could do. He was just 25 years old.

Nobody at 51 really knew any of the guys they'd been working with, but it didn't matter, all firefighters were family, and another house's loss was just as painful as if it had been one of their own. Nobody talked for the rest of the shift, nobody ate at dinner, after a while everybody went their own ways to the bunk room and their quarters for the night.

And here Severide was. He'd been laying on his bunk for over an hour, he wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, he didn't even know if he felt tired or not. He didn't know what he felt at that time. It wasn't an entirely unfamiliar feeling but he'd never been able to put a name to it.

Suddenly, there was a low knock on his door, and he heard it open, and he could make out the form of somebody coming in, he knew who it was.

"Can I come in?" Casey whispered.

Kelly nodded even though he knew Casey couldn't see him. "Sure."

The door closed, and Casey, acting on memory and impulse, made his way over to the bunk, and just about collapsed on it.

"Get over here." Severide sat up and moved over, then felt Casey's arms practically choking him, and felt the tremors running through his body, which coincided with the choked sounds he tried to suppress behind a set of gritted teeth so nobody else would hear him. Kelly let Casey get adjusted to holding onto him, then returned the embrace and held his best friend close as they both broke down sobbing.

* * *

Kelly opened his eyes and everything was still dark, but he felt Casey laying beside him, using part of his chest for a pillow. He didn't know how long they'd been asleep but he was grateful that Casey had finally stopped crying.

Being a firefighter at all and having to deal with the death of a fellow firefighter was hard as hell, but the position they were in made it harder. Being a lieutenant, Casey didn't feel that he could discuss certain things with the men in his command. Severide understood that, he never told his guys anything he didn't have to, but then again for him, that was a general rule of life, he never told _anybody_ anything unless he had to. In times of tragedy, it was recommended that everybody speak with the firehouse chaplain, but there was only so much you could say to someone like that, and talking to a therapist was a dead last resort when it meant your job if you didn't comply. All they really had to turn to was each other. With their own history, he knew Casey pretty well, and he knew at times like this, Casey struggled to get through the rest of the day until he could finally hole up in his office and not have to see or talk to anyone. Anyone except _him_ that was, and sometimes not even then.

This was not the first time that this had happened. After the rift between them following Andy's death, and the fact it took Herrmann almost dying on the job to force them into reconciliation to get all of them out of there alive, they'd finally reached an agreement they wouldn't let another death divide them like before. To make sure of that, one would go to the other's quarters at night when nobody would intrude on them. That more just happened than was just something they'd planned on. The first time had been after Hallie's murder, Casey had held everything together until Voight and his people caught her killer, that night he'd wandered over to Kelly's quarters and stayed with him until the sun came up the next day. As hard as Kelly had accepted Shay's death, when he did finally come back to 51, he'd crossed over to Casey's office and stayed with him for half the night. Sometimes they just talked, careful not to say anything loud enough to wake up anybody in the bunk room. Sometimes they never said anything, but both were in need of the presence of another human being to keep from losing their minds to the silence and the solitude and the _loss_. Other times...like last night...they held onto each other as they emotionally fell apart, finally feeling safe enough they were _able_ to in each other's presence. _Only_ in each other's presence, that had been the deal, nobody else was to know anything about it. _They_ knew the reasoning behind what they did, but it was unlikely anybody else would understand it, so it was just easier to avoid that part of it altogether.

Something else nobody else would ever understand, and Severide couldn't explain it, not even to Casey he couldn't, it was only times like this when Casey was in a dead sleep and oblivious to anything going on around him that Kelly felt safe enough to actually do what he did. He leaned down and lightly kissed Casey on the head. He couldn't pinpoint where he'd done it, but his lips made contact with Casey's hair. He couldn't explain _why_ he did it, and if Casey ever actually caught him at it he'd be embarrassed to death to admit it, but it was something he just felt he _had_ to do. There was no response from the man sleeping on him, so Severide took that as a good sign, and decided to bite the bullet.

"Casey, you awake?"

"Hmm?" Casey groaned as Kelly felt Casey turn his head to the side.

"You alright?"

Casey groaned tiredly and asked, "What time is it?"

Kelly reached over and grabbed his phone and was practically blinded by the light on the screen, but he answered, "5 o' clock."

Casey was more alert now and pushed back the covers. "I better get back before anybody finds out..."

It was what they always did. They had been fortunate so far that no calls came in in the middle of the night when this happened, so neither of them had to awkwardly explain anything to anybody, but early the next morning before everybody else got up, whoever bunked with whom for the night always crept back to their own quarters to act like everything was normal shortly before the day began.

Sheepishly, Casey said as he stood up. "Thanks, Kelly."

Severide stretched his arms clear above his head as he scooted into the middle of the bunk now that the other side was unoccupied, and he answered with a tired groan, "No problem...next time I'll come see you."

Casey stopped at the door and mentioned before he walked out, "I wish there wouldn't be a next time."

Kelly waited until he heard the door close, then he responded as he settled back under the blanket, "So do I."


	7. One Angry Man

One Angry Man

Capp entered the courthouse, and making his way past a group of other people, stopped to look at the paperwork that had come to him in the mail. He looked at the arrows on the wall but didn't get an answer where he was supposed to go. He went upstairs to a clerk's office and held up his papers, "I'm here for jury duty."

Without even looking up, the redheaded female clerk who looked to be in her late 20s, pointed and said, "You need to go down the hall then."

"But I'm not supposed to be here," Capp told her.

That got her attention and she looked up. "You were summoned?"

"Yeah."

"Then you need to go to the courtroom down the hall," she told him.

"But I filled out the form and told them why I can't be here," Capp said.

"Did you receive another summons?" she asked.

"Yes. I called here and explained why I can't be here," Capp said.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember talking to you," she told him.

"I don't think I _did_ talk to you," he told her. "The woman I talked to sounded..."

The woman arched her eyebrows, waiting for the last word.

"Black."

"That's Jamie Archer, she's the clerk downstairs," the woman said.

"Well I told her I can't be on the jury," Capp told her. "She said I'd have to see the judge and explain it to her in person."

"That's your right," she replied.

"But where _is_ the judge?" Capp asked.

"In her chambers."

Capp nodded slowly, then asked, "Where's her chamber?"

The clerk looked at the clock and told him, "You need to head over to the courtroom, everybody needs to be seated in ten minutes."

"But I need to talk to the judge," Capp said.

"You'll just have to explain your situation when you're called," she said simply.

Capp sighed and shook his head and headed out of the office and followed the arrows down a set of twists and turns before he came to a line of people who were being wanded by security before they were allowed in the courtroom. Rolling his eyes, he stuffed the paper in his jacket pocket and took his place in line. 10 people got in ahead of him, and he passed through the metal detector and held his arms out to the sides as the security guard wanded him before giving him the okay to go in.

The courtroom was full of people who were all murmuring to each other while they waited for the judge to arrive, most of the gallery seats were full. He found an empty section a few rows down from the entrance, and sat down in the third one and waited.

"Excuse me," a voice drew him out of his thoughts.

Capp turned and saw a 30-something blonde woman in gray college sweats and white sneakers and she asked him, "Is somebody sitting here?"

Capp turned and looked behind him and saw the rest of the bench was empty. He shook his head and scooted over so she could sit down.

"You're here for jury duty too?" he asked.

"Not if I have anything to do with it," she said with a small laugh as she seated herself next to him.

"I'm not supposed to be here either," he told her.

"You been called before?" she asked.

"Uh...once...long time ago."

"This is the 6th time they've called me," she told him. "Most of the time they just settle out of court before this point, I was hoping they would again."

Capp nodded in understanding. He turned towards her and held his hand out. "I'm Harold."

"Nice to meet you," she shook his hand, "I'm Thelma." She sighed as she looked to the front and said, "I hope I'm in the first batch they call so I can get the hell out of here."

"Any particular reason?"

"Yeah, I work nights at a call center and I can't take a week off of work for what they pay jurors," she answered. "You?"

"I'm a firefighter," he answered.

Thelma straightened in her seat a little and looked towards the door and asked, "You supposed to be working today?"

"Tomorrow," Capp told her.

"Damn, I guess they really _do_ pick everyone at random," she commented.

A door opened, a court officer came in and announced, "All rise for the Honorable Judge Louise Claxton."

Everybody stood up as a middle aged woman entered the courtroom and took her seat and told them, "You may be seated."

The judge talked for several minutes about why everybody was there and how it was going to work, introduced the court reporter and explained the necessity of verbal and coherent answers for her sake, and added that those who hadn't shown up would be paid a visit by law enforcement, and for those present to come to the jury box as their names were called. Several names called turned out to be no-shows, seven people were already called to the box when Thelma's name was called, she got up and joined the others, then the rest of the box was filled. There were 6 metal folding chairs in front of the jury box for alternative jurors.

"Harold Capp."

Showtime. He stood up, walked down the aisle, and took his spot in the front row. After another 10 minutes, the rest of the chairs were filled as well. The judge went over questions about did anybody have any medical problems that would make it difficult for them to sit there for several hours each day during the trial, did anybody have a hearing problem that might make it difficult for them to understand what was being said, etc. A few people answered as such. The judge explained that they were there for a criminal trial, and it would be up to them to study the evidence presented and determine if the defendant was innocent or guilty. She also told them the trial was expected to be 5 days, and asked if anybody had any reasons why they believed they wouldn't be able to sit on the jury for a week, work, family emergency, etc. Several hands went up, Capp's included, but despite him sitting in the front row, the judge didn't get to him right away. Instead he had to listen to the people around him talk about jobs they had, pets they had to take care of, children or elderly parents they had to tend to. After a while he got tired of waiting and put his hand down, and the judge must've forgotten because when everyone else was done answering, she didn't question him. Then he realized the woman he'd been sitting with hadn't answered, he turned in his seat and looked back at her, and she just shrugged. The look in her eyes suggested she was waiting for another question to put in her two cents. Capp turned to the front again as the prosecutor and the defense walked in, as did the defendant, who was dressed in fancy civilian clothes and _not_ walking with anything shackled up. He listened as both lawyers got up to talk separately, stating that the defendant, one Steven Grady, was arrested on charges of arson and murder, accused of setting fire to an apartment complex he owned in an attempt to collect on the insurance, in which one Phyllis Marshall, age 87, died in the fire. Capp's hand immediately went up again.

"Sir, you have to wait for someone to ask you a question," the judge told him.

At 51 Capp had a reputation as the goofball of the bunch, but even he knew not to get stuck with a contempt citation, so he kept what he was going to say to himself and folded his arms against his chest as he waited. A couple minutes later one of the lawyers asked if anybody had ever worked for the CFD, did they know anybody who worked at CFD, that would in any way impair their ability to remain impartial. Capp's hand went up again, but once again he was passed over for someone else.

"Yes, Miss, what is your name?" the lawyer asked.

"Thelma Ferber."

Capp turned and looked back at the woman he'd been talking to, now she was sitting up straight in her chair and looked like she was ready to drop the ball.

"And do you have a reason you believe you wouldn't be able to remain impartial if selected for this jury?"

"Yeah," she answered without missing a beat, "I used to date an arson investigator who was very opinionated and liked to talk about his work while we were together."

Her voice was convincing enough but there was something in her eyes that told Capp that that was a bold faced lie, struggling to maintain a straight face himself, he turned back to the front and raised his hand again. But he was once again overshadowed by other people who used to be volunteer firemen, who had firefighters in their family, it did not seem possible to Capp that so many people in the first 18 selected should've been able to fit that category. After a while he got tired of waiting for everybody else to answer, so to make sure he wasn't passed over this time he raised both arms high over his head and waved them to get somebody's attention.

"Yes, you..." the attorney consulted the list, "Mr. Capp. Is there a reason you feel you wouldn't be able to remain impartial if selected for this jury?"

"Yes," Capp answered simply.

"And what is that reason?"

"Well for one, I'm a currently active firefighter at Firehouse 51," he answered.

There was a stir of people murmuring, and the defense and his client exchanged a mutual look, as did the defense and the prosecution.

"Did you know when you came here today what this case was for?"

"No, but I tried to explain to the court that I couldn't serve on this jury because I'm on shift for two of the five days of the trial...but I guess somebody didn't get what I was trying to say because I was told to come in anyway, and that I'd have to explain my situation to the judge, but there wasn't time for that because they were already calling everyone in. But there is another reason I don't feel I could sit on this jury with a shred of impartiality."

"And what is that?"

Capp looked at the lawyer in the expensive suit, and without missing a beat he explained, "Because five years ago, we at 51 responded to a building fire which turned out to be a small business the defendant co-owned, who we believed intentionally torched the building so he and his partner could collect on the insurance. The arson squad was brought in to investigate and they determined that there had in fact been an accelerant used at the source of the fire, but there wasn't enough physical evidence to tie Mr. Grady back to it given fires tend to eat up all evidence of arson, hence why it _is_ one of the hardest crimes to prove. However I can say that the investigators were forced to sit on a lot of evidence they found, and commented if anybody could've brought a civil suit against Mr. Grady for damages caused by the fire, they would've been able to present far more evidence they found in their investigation, than they would legally be allowed to testify to in a criminal trial."

Half of the courtroom was silent, the other half was abuzz with this newfound information, and the defense attorney looked like he was going to choke.

The judge noted the time and said they would be taking a 15 minute break so the lawyers could make their decisions about who they would be picking for the jury. Capp left the room with everyone else, and he heard a familiar voice behind him and turned to see Thelma running to catch up with him.

"Do you have any idea what you just did?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered, "I made damn sure nobody in that courtroom can possibly think that son of a bitch innocent. The daycare next door to his business caught fire that day, three kids were treated for second degree burns, seven for smoke inhalation, but nobody could touch the bastard."

"I can hear that lawyer now, 'Strike for cause, this potential juror knows too much!' If he doesn't try to call the whole thing a mass conspiracy to taint the jury pool, I'll be surprised. Why the hell did they make you show up?" the blonde woman asked him.

"That's what I've been trying to find out," Capp told her. "I told everybody I couldn't be here, nobody listened, someone said tell the clerk, the clerk said tell the judge, the clerk here isn't the same clerk I talked to, and before I could find out where the judge was, they were bringing us in," he explained.

She laughed and said, "This will be one case _nobody_ will forget."

"Did you really date an arson investigator?" Capp asked her.

"No," she answered, "but it sounded like a good way to get excused." She stifled her smirk and said more seriously, "Oh but I feel horrible about it after what you just did."

He smiled at her and nodded, "It's okay, I get it. Nobody wants to be here."

"I can't _afford_ to be here. I work nights so I can get a few hours' sleep at the crack of dawn, so I can stay home with my daughter until she starts kindergarten," Thelma explained, the burnout clear in her voice.

"How old is she?" Capp asked.

"Three. My mom watches her while I'm at work, when she starts school I can switch to a daytime job, but I'm not having her raised by strangers her whole life, there's going to be enough of that when she actually starts school. I want her to remember _me_ when she grows up, that I was _there_."

Capp felt the smile on his face widen even more. "That's nice. They didn't have as many kids in daycare when I was growing up but my mom-"

A court officer informed everybody in the hall that they needed to return to the courtroom, and everybody was asked to return to their original seats in the gallery. The judge came back out and announced, "We are going to call some people's names to come back down to the jury box."

A few names were called, but Capp wasn't among them, and neither was Thelma. When they finished addressing people, the judge told the people still in the gallery, "If you were among the first group of people called earlier, and you did not hear your name called, you are excused from jury duty and are free to leave, you will be excused from jury duty for a year, and on your way out see the clerk about being paid for your services. The court thanks you for your time."

One by one, people got up and piled out of the courtroom. Behind them, more names were being called for more people to come to the front.

"Of course you realize," Thelma said as they walked down the corridor, "you just guaranteed that defense is going to push for a change of venue, and they'll have to start all over again."

"Probably," Capp replied, "but at least it's going to make things a little harder for that prick." He looked around and finally asked her, " _Where_ is the clerk I have to see?"

She laughed and said, "Come on, I'll show you."


End file.
